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this isn't really a proper review as such... just chatting crap about the bands i saw. i suppose i could have written this articulately, but oh well. just enjoy my immature ranting.
wont bother with anything else aside from bands - lets just say it was all very very messy :D
thursday
this day was mostly an excuse to get wasted, but turns out there were two bands i wanted to see
Scumface and
Silent Descent. scumface were hilarious - expected innit, and silent descent were seriously awesome. my mates said they were like a shitter enter shikari (they can fuck off) when they overheard their soundcheck before scumface. apparently it was silent descent doing the sound check, but who knows. either way i reckoned they were well good, filled with so much energy. not the best clean singers, but hey, they're a small band so i'll let them off!
friday
my mate decided that seeing
Hollywood Undead would be a funny one so we all went as a group to go see them. turns out they weren't even funny to laugh at, they were fucking godawful and even that one song i knew (hollywood undead going down or whatever) didn't save anything of value. one for the ironic scene-kids.
after this i had the idea of seeing
In This Moment because the singer (well, from promotional photos) looked really hot and the songs i had heard (from the first album) weren't too bad, so i thought it could be ok. how wrong i was. as soon as whatshername turned up onstage our faces were aghast - she looked like a methhead with too much make up. oh well, doesn't matter really, the music could be ok, right? wrong. instead of some half-decent metalcore like i was expecting i was 'rewarded' with some shitty alternative rock tripe flavoured with possibly the worst singer ever. i mean i like alternative rock and all but this was just fucking shit. and seriously, this singer has no saving grace, her singing was practially tone-deaf and her screams were just... fucking embarassing. when she screams it's like hearing a 6-year old girl having a tantrum. they didn't even play the song i knew. completely embarassing.
our group fucked off after hearing that godawful piece of shit band, but i decided to stick around with another friend of mine to go see
A Day to Remember. it was either this or generic deathcore band so i think i made the right choice, plus what i heard from them i quite liked, so i was hoping i wouldnt be disappointed. and i wasnt! the songs the band played were fairly catchy making for a fun watch throughout - plus most of the songs featured random beatdowns after 2 minutes of pop-punk, which was well funny. dead good.
after this it was a choice between sylosis or
Parkway Drive. knew both bands about as well as each other so i wasn't really sure who to see before the festival, but during campsite times i overheard a parkway drive song (romance is dead) which sounded really really good, so i thought hey why not lets go see parkway.
and what were they like? full of energy, seriously powerful. this was some fucking heavy shit. the crowd was going mental. i dont think i have to say much, it was just awesome.
went to the main stage, caught a bit of
Billy Talent. it was alright, don't really know em that well aside from that song that gets played in clubs all the time. i should know what its called but who cares really.
after walked forwards to catch some
Killswitch Engage! what i witnessed was a good.. but not really amazing show. they played the singles, a new song and some other song from as daylight dies, and of course holy diver, which everyone went sick to. the new song was extremely nice sounding so im looking forward to their new album a lot now (why is it self-titled though? dont they already have a self-titled?), and adam d was hilarious. i wish i remembered most of the things he said, especially what he was saying before holy diver. funny funny guy.
next up was
Limp Bizkit, and we were in for a helluva show. went through a phase of hating them but now ive warmed up to them.. though i dont really consider them a legendary band, just a funny as fuck one! we tried to get to the front but some tall bastards were in the way so we ended up being squished around the middle. damn. but i couldnt give a shit when they came on stage, opening with BREAK STUFF! didn't see that coming. the band was on top form, playing hit after hit after hit. fred durst tried to get the crowd to sit down ala corey taylor and jump the fuck up... but err nobody listened, really. wes was even wearing his voodoo makeup! wow. absolutely top live band.
ended up leaving to go with a couple of people to the second stage.. cant remember why, think they wanted to go shops or something. saw the first song of
Opeth, fairly impressed and definitely made me want to go see them when they toured with dream theater.. but i just had to see...
Korn!
this was a sick show, typical festival setlist with all the singles.. but also a few surprises like chi and divine. from where i was i was like YEAHHHH and everyone was like "lol wat is this song". bastards! they even went into a cover of 'we will rock you'.. which was pretty pointless really. jonathan davies did some pretty sick death growls too, really surprising. no shit songs from the last two albums either, will the new album actually be (gasp) good? probably not.
after this went to the third stage to catch the almighty
Meshuggah, though i ended up waiting longer than i thought i would. i ended up hearing a bit of Faith No More outside, playing From Out Of Nowhere, awesome tune! but as soon as that ended Meshuggah entered the stage and proceeded to FUCK MY MIND UP. this band was fucking INSANE! how the fuck do they do this shit live? theres like 2 or 3 different time signatures going on at the same time, it was immense. words cannot describe how amazing this band was, the aggression and energy was through the roof. sadly Future Breed Machine and New Millenium Cynaide Christ didn't get played live, was a bit gutted about that, looks like they didnt have enough time to as the setlist ended quite abruptly anyway. Combustion got played though, that was awesome. left the stage and caught
Faith No More's best song - WE CARE A LOT! i was like woooo and then it ended. shame.
saturday
the weather was getting hotter and hotter so that probably means figuratively speaking the bands will be even hotter as well. that doesn't make any goddamn sense. but i saw
Tim "Ripper" Owens - who was... okay. ended up playing some generic oldschool metal songs that arent really oldschool since they were written this year, but they sounded pretty oldschool either way. nothing really special, though hearing the cover of Green Manalishi was fucking awesome! and ripper owens is a seriously good singer, some great metal wails and screams.
up next was
Five Finger Death Punch and in all honesty i thought their studio stuff was great, but all my mates said they were shit. didn't think that they would be right because live they were boring and sloppy as fuck. the singer was out of time most of the show and fell flat on the clean singing. they need to refine themselves when it comes to playing live. disappointing.
my mate then decided to go for a MASSIVE SHIT which involved going to the campsite, getting toilet paper, taking a SHIT, putting toilet paper back and coming back to the arena. it took him about an hour and a half whilst me and my other friend were standing around the arena seeing two bands at once somehow -
Hardcore Superstar and
DevilDriver. i had already seen devildriver 2 years ago (they were amazing) so i wasn't too arsed about seeing them anyway, but what i heard was pretty much the same as the last time, probably worse since it was in the open air arena rather than a tent. still saw the massive circle pit on the TV though - one word: gigantic.
what i heard of hardcore superstar was seriously impressive. had no idea what the band were like but what i saw was great! some kinda glam/oldschool metal mix, apparently this band has like 6 albums and are pretty popular in sweden, they deserve to get huge.
my mate took ages so we fucked off to go see
Hatebreed. this was a quality show filled with aggression energy and typical "FAMILY PUMP YOUR FIST FUCK SHIT UP GET ANGRY" singing. one of the songs had "pits n tits", as in jamie jasta told the women in the crowd to get on their boyfriends backs.. and of course tits were flashed through the whole song. great stuff! no defeatist though, but oh well, the black flag cover was pretty sick.
after this it was time for some
Static-X! well before that we ended up witnessing
Fightstar, who were ok - they played that really heavy song and a new song that sounded really decent.then we ran awayfrom a swarm of killer bees, and since we were stoned as fuck we were proper wested out, but it was all ok and none of us got stung. static-x arrived on stage and played a fucking brilliant show.. wayne static is a fuckin leg-end! plus the bassist looks like kerry king's long lost brother or something, that was awesome. for some reason after two songs they decided that "IT'S TIME FOR SOME SHOTS", so 'mrs static' (who i found out later was an ex-porn star) ended up giving the band shots of.. something.. and then left. this happened again after two more songs with "IT'S TIME FOR SOME MORE SHOTS", though this time mrs static ended up flashing her ass. i still dont understand what the point of all this was, but who cares when awesome songs like i'm with stupid, dirthouse and the legendary PUSH IT got played. Push It was awesome. fucking. awesome.
left the arena to go meet another mate of mine, get wasted and then go see
Lawnmower Deth instead of pendulum. since everyone was seeing pendulum we decided itd be a funny one to go see this band we hardly knew with a funny name and screw everyone off. best decision we ever made because the third stage ended up being packed, the band was catchy and funny as fuck (mexican waves! fish dancing! 21 second countdown ending song that lasts 1 second!) and it felt almost touching seeing them play to such an awesome crowd. fuck
Pendulum, saw a few songs of them. it was the newer stuff. it was shit. thank god.
went back campsite, got some more booze down us and then came back for
The Prodigy!.. which in a word was simply epic. the whole second stage was packed, but we ended up finding a good spot near the middle with a bunch of people raving near us. not much else to say about the prodigy.. played all the classics, some mint songs from the new album, nothing from always outnumbered never outgunned (thank god).. and there was MUCH raving. everyone was goin SICK. what else can i say aside from that it was brilliant!
was gonna go see the last part of Anvil, but when I arrived to the main stage
Slipknot were just starting Everything Ends so I just had to stay. the crowd was absolutely mental and the band were seriously insane. corey taylor really should have shut up with the angsty bullshit though. spit it out was nuts, everyone sat down instantly when corey said so, and there were circlepits EVERYWHERE around the stage! insane.
sunday
the sun was taking a toll on me, my face was burnt to fuck so i decided that i would only see the bands i REALLY wanted to see. was thinkin of going first or second stage to see some bands before black stone cherry, but felt so exhausted, rough and painful that it would have been a stupid idea.
still, we all went main stage to go see
Black Stone Cherry, who were pretty decent (if i hadnt had seen god forbid before download i probably would have seen them instead), thought i'd recognise most of the songs but i felt like i knew the songs and didnt know the songs at the same time. i remember Lonely Train and Rain Wizard, plus a bit of Voodoo Child. fairly chilled out performance, and they sounded soooo southern it was untrue. chris robertson was making no sense half the time in his stage banter. but still, good show, yeah?
but of course, we all knew that we HAD to see
Journey. we knew this was either gonna be really really epic.. or disappointing. what was it? FUCKING EPIC AND TIGHT AS FUCK! this was probably the tightest band of the festival as there wasnt one sour note at all, and the singer was absolutely unreal, sounded exactly like Steve Perry! JOURNEY!!!!!!!!!!!
i was planning on seeing either Dream Theater or Volbeat, but the weather got to us so much that we decided to chill at the campsite until
ZZ Top. i had already seen dream theater twice before and i hardly knew volbeat so it wasn't that big of a deal. sadly, ZZ Top were clashing with Sabbat so i was only able to see the start and end of the Top's setlist, because i knew i had to see Sabbat. when it comes to zz top's performance, what i saw was what i expected - just some damn fine blues rock with beards in top form. good shit
but i had to go see
Sabbat! i was actually slightly disappointed by these.. the crowd didnt seem to be that into it and it wasnt as amazing as i thought it'd be. lawnmower deth probably spoilt the expectations since they were so good, but it was still a decent show for Sabbat, some great ripping technical thrash! seems I missed my favourite song For Those Who Died.. did that even get played? ah well. worth seeing either way!
after this i couldnt be arsed with all the boiling sunshine burning my fucking skin off, plus there were no other bands i really wanted to see. on the way back ended up catching some
Buckcherry, who were good, basically. then left to go back campsite and had a pretty funny night involving drunk driving dodgems and high fiving. hell yeah.
overall - absolutely amazing festival. roll on next year!
Türkçe
ZZ Top
